A River Enchanted – Book Review
A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I fell in love with Rebecca Ross’ stories after reading The Divine Rivals duology which I found to be fabulous: well written and so full of surprises it left constantly wondering what would happen next. So I was very excited to read her previous work, A River Enchanted duology.
The positives first: again, she writes a beautiful, lyrical world well-developed and magical. The characters are also well developed and likable. The fact that Cadence mirrored the lands of bygone Scotland made me swoon. I also liked the fact that almost all her characters have flaws which makes them very human and therefore more relatable.
Now the negatives: I got engaged pretty early on (this is a good thing) but after a few chapters I began to feel that something was off and I couldn’t figure out exactly what. Then I realized that there was a lot of passive voice throughout the story and frequent head-hopping. A lot of “she realized”, “he noticed”, that kind of thing. The dialogue was a bit stilted as well and at times it didn’t ring authentic to me. Now, my guess is that Ross did this to give the story a more “vintage” (for lack of a better word) feel to the story but for me it didn’t work very well.
Don’t get me wrong I still enjoyed the story and will be reading the conclusion to the duology, but I was a bit disappointed after reading her amazing “Divine Rivals” which read so much smoother. Still a fan, Ms Ross.
